A former employee at Beast Industries has sued the production company founded by YouTuber MrBeast (legal name Jimmy Donaldson), alleging she was subjected to “years” of sexual harassment by company leaders.
In the federal lawsuit, filed on April 22 in the Eastern District Court of North Carolina, Lorrayne Mavromatis alleged she faced sexual harassment from Beast Industries CEO James Warren.
Mavromatis, who was hired in 2022 as the head of the company’s Instagram team, claims that Warren made her “meet him in his home for one-on-one meetings while commenting on the way she looked in her clothes,” according to the legal documents.
She also alleges that Warren “dismissed her complaint about a male client’s unwelcome advances toward her as nothing (telling her that she should be honored that the client was hitting on her).”
Mavromatis claims that when she asked Warren why Donaldson wouldn’t “work with her on certain projects,” she says that Warren told her “that she is a beautiful woman and her appearance had a certain sexual effect on Jimmy.”
According to the legal filing, Mavromatis claims she was “treated differently than her male counterpart.”
“Plaintiff was told to leave an otherwise all-male meeting by Donaldson. She was told by a male colleague to ‘shut up’ or ‘stop talking’ when she voiced her opinion at a staff meeting with employees she supervised,” the legal docs said.
Get breaking National news
Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.
“Donaldson said he would only participate in her video shoot if she brought him a beer — a task meant to demean her as she rushed around the production site in search of a beer in front of the production team when it was known Donaldson didn’t really drink, and he indeed did not drink the beer,” the suit alleges.
Mavromatis claims that executives at Beast Industries displayed “demeaning treatment towards women” and it was “publicly displayed at MrBeast headquarters when male executives laughed and made jokes at the office about female contestants of BeastGames who complained they did not have access to feminine hygiene products and clean underwear while participating in the show.”
Beast Games is Donaldson’s competition reality show, in which contestants compete in physical, mental and social challenges for a chance to win a $5 million cash prize.
Beast Industries denied Mavromatis’ claims in a statement to Deadline and referred to the suit as “no more than a shakedown.”
“This clout-chasing complaint is built on deliberate misrepresentations and categorically false statements, and we have the receipts to prove it,” Beast Industries said. “There is extensive evidence — including Slack and WhatsApp messages, company documents, and witness testimony — that unequivocally refutes her claims. We will not submit to opportunistic lawyers looking to manufacture a payday from us.”
Mavromatis said that when she complained about the alleged “sexual harassment and the hostile work environment” to human resources in 2023, she was told her claims were “unsubstantiated” and she was “promptly demoted and transferred to an obscure role known by MrBeast employees as the division where ‘careers go to die.’”
More on Entertainment
More videos
In early 2025, Mavromatis became pregnant, she says in the suit, and alleges the company didn’t tell her about its maternity leave policy.
“MrBeast terminated Plaintiff less than three weeks after she returned from FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act] and pregnancy-related leave telling her that she was ‘too high caliber’ for the role she was demoted into after formally complaining about sexual harassment and the hostile work environment at MrBeast,” the lawsuit says.
Mavromatis claims that near the date of her termination, “MrBeast posted a job opening for a Social Media Content Manager.”
“MrBeast did not offer Plaintiff this Social Media Content Manager role or even an opportunity to apply for the position. Instead, MrBeast offered her a severance agreement with a release of all employment claims and strict confidentiality,” the suit says. “Human Resources and her manager said if she signed the severance agreement, they would give her an additional month of health insurance that covered herself and baby. MrBeast filled the Social Media Content Manager position with a male in early 2026.”
Mavromatis’ lawsuit claims that MrBeast “apparently saw no problem with firing Plaintiff, a female employee with no performance issues who had successfully performed roles at MrBeast, within a few weeks of her return from maternity leave and replacing her with a man.”
She is seeking lost wages, lost benefits, reinstatement, front pay in lieu of reinstatement, liquidated damages, compensatory damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, pre- and post-judgment interest and reasonable lawyers’ fees and costs, according to the complaint.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
